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The Diet That Helps Fight Climate Change?

A lot of people count calories, or try to cut carbs from their diet — the next step could be cutting carbon from your diet. Take that steak on your plate: Eating an average-sized steak for dinner has a comparable carbon footprint to driving about three miles in a standard gas-powered car. Get a large steak with some sides, and you easily double the impact.

“We have to think about the methane that’s being released from animals and rice paddies and areas where we’re growing food. And we have to consider the nitrous oxide gas that’s being produced from the fertilizers we’re feeding to the microbes that live in the soil. And you add all of that together, and you get a better understanding of global climate impacts of our food system,” said Houlton.

Different foods have vastly different carbon footprints. Swap your steak for fish, for example, and you get an eight-fold reduction in emissions. And if you’re game to switch that to beans or lentils your emissions drop to near zero. It really gets interesting when lots of us start making similar changes.

“What we’re finding is that reducing your meat intake can actually offset the emissions from all of our cars and even double that,” said Almaraz. “It’s not really something that you write into the Paris climate agreement. It’s something we have to decide on every day.”